Daily Archives:April 9, 2018

DUBLIN, Ohio, April 9, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — The Wendy’s Company (NASDAQ: WEN) will release its first quarter 2018 results after the market closes on Tuesday, May 8. The Company will host a conference call on Wednesday, May 9 at 9:00 a.m. ET, and a simultaneous webcast and…

In a recent episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, Spinal Tap bassist Derek Smalls sat down with host Brian Hiatt for a no-holds-barred, unforgettable interview. Smalls – who is about to release his first solo album, Smalls Change, and is embarking on a tour backed by various orchestras – told all about going solo, his band’s drummer curse, that airport incident, and much, much more. Click play below to hear the entire interview, recorded in glorious hi-fi “Dobly,” or download and subscribe on iTunes or Spotify.

Some highlights of the conversation:

On Spinal Tap’s drummer problem: “It was a curse, and a curses are not to be sneezed at, or even burped at, for that matter. But the interesting thing to me is we had half a dozen or more drummers on Smalls Change. And all of them are fine! For me, I guess it’s almost a reverse curse, because a couple of drummers said they’d never felt better. But they all wanted a nice insurance policy for the wives and kiddies just to be on the safe side. Some waivers were signed, some incantations were laid, I’ll admit it. You want to propitiate the supreme evil one before you take on another drummer.

On composing the music for “Big Bottom”: “It was pretty obvious, mate. In a song about big bottoms, you had to have a big bottom.”

Comparing Nigel Tufnel with Smalls Change guest guitarist Joe Satriani: I’d say Joe is less random in his approach. And Nigel is, probably, in his own way, more spiritual. I’d say. As he was doing his solos. I don’t think Nigel saw people in the audience. I think he saw imaginary animals and was playing to enchant them. I don’t think Joe does that. But If you’re asking me to rate guitarists on the basis of their speed, dexterity, fondness for certain notes? Joe’s clearly the better technician. Nigel, I think, is the more imaginative artist. I don’t think Joe’s ever done a solo where he played the guitar with a violin and Nigel has. I don’t think anyone else has even thought that was a good idea, let alone tried it.

On being caught with a zucchini in his pants at airport security in This Is Spinal Tap: I think it was, in fact, an amazing look forward into the future. We could never have anticipated where everyone was going to be embarrassed and humiliated at airport security. You know, everyone is Derek Smalls now. I would say to young people listening, don’t try to go to airport security with anything wrapped in aluminum foil. That was my mistake. If you’ve ever put a zucchini down your trousers without foil wrapping and you sweat, you’ve got a bit of a mess on your hands at the end.

On Brexit: “It’s my favorite meal of the day.”

Listen and subscribe to Rolling Stone Music Now on iTunes or Spotify (where you can hear over 100 episodes so far) and tune in Fridays at 1 p.m. ET to hear the show live on Sirius XM’s Volume Channel.

A little more than a dozen years ago, Willie Nelson stumbled out of the poker room at his house in Maui in a haze of marijuana smoke to find his then-14-year-old son Micah playing Mario Kart on a Nintendo 64. Micah had just returned from a school trip, and his father greeted him with a huge grin. “Welcome home, Particle Kid!” Willie said.

“I thought it was the funniest thing, so I never forgot it,” Micah says. “Years later I asked him about it and he said, ‘I was trying to say “Welcome home, Prodigal Son,” but I was so stoned it came out as ‘Particle Kid.'”

By that point, the teenaged Micah had already started recording his own low-fi, dreamscape music – a slow tumble of guitars, far-off vocals, and washes of rhythm and noise – and when he decided to release it, he used the nom de smoke-plume that Willie had given him. The first Particle Kid collections were limited to 200 cassette tapes on the indie label Dome of Doom, and there was no sign they came from the son of Willie Nelson. “Instead of taking advantage of that I always felt that I had to work twice as hard as everyone else and live up the name, really earn it,” Micah says.

Earn it he has, though he may be working more than twice as hard as everyone else. A musical polymath who, according to Willie, “plays everything,” Micah combines an indie DIY aesthetic with a questing hippie spirit and a relentless work ethic. Over the last few months, the 27-year-old has done everything from open shows for Margo Price – one of Nashville’s sharpest and hardest rocking songwriters – to backing up Neil Young in his older brother Lukas’ band, Promise of the Real. Songs like “Gunshow Loophole Blues” from Particle Kid’s latest, Everything Is Bullshit, were inspired by the madness of Trump’s America. There’s also his adventurous rock quintet Insects vs. Robots, a series of animated short films he’s been working on, the Space Gnome deck of cards he’s designed to benefit the Bridge School (a cause Young has long supported), and an interactive album inspired by the patterns of hotel carpets he’s photographed that. “Whether I’m gardening or working on my car of making music or painting, it’s all part the same entity,” he says. “I’ve always felt like an artist who is using music as a medium.”

Micah Nelson for Rolling Stone

His role as integral member of Neil Young’s band began with an impromptu rendition of “Rockin’ in the Free World” at Farm Aid in 2014, which quickly lead to Promise of the Real backing Young on two studio albums and a series tours. Despite the nearly half-century age gap between Young and the band, they’ve become a very tight unit, and Micah and Lukas have coaxed Young to bust out rarities he hasn’t played since the 1970s, like “Alabama” and “Vampire Blues” and “L.A.”

Micah says playing music with Young has been like “getting a masters degree in Jedi training.” Young has schooled the Nelson brothers with precepts like, “The perfect is highly overrated.” “The main thing he’s taught me about music is, ‘If you think, you’re fucked.’ You have to accept your flaws and embrace them.”

Young cast Micah, Lukas and the rest of Promise of the Real in his trippy western Paradox, directed by Young’s girlfriend Daryl Hannah and shot in the Rockies during a four day tour break, using vintage Super 8 film and Hannah’s phone. “We’re all miners in the future, mining for ancient technology like computers and phones,” says Micah. “It’s a strange, beautiful art film.” He say that Young and Hannah call Paradox “a very loud poem” — perhaps the only such poem streaming on Netflix.

Touring with Young means some nights Micah’s playing for 100,000 fans on a bill with Paul McCartney at Desert Trip, and then just a few weeks later he’s out on his own, singing to a handful of people at a dusty club. It’s a balance that Micah has learned to embrace, though in the future he hopes to gain just a little more traction with his own career. “I wish I had a roadie to help me carry shit around,” he says, then laughs. “I’d like to be able to employ a reliable sound guy and incorporate some of animation into the show. But I feel like I’ve come a long way in the past couple of years and I want to keep the momentum going. Hopefully I’ll hit a nerve with more people without sacrificing or compromising on anything.”

GLENDALE, Calif., April 9, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — California Credit Union has launched a suite of interactive web portals providing free financial education and management tools to members via its website. Through the new online sites, the credit union aims to provide members with tools and…

System of a Down announced a five-date run starting October 13th in San Bernardino, California through October 19th in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The alt-metal quartet last performed in the U.S. during their 2015 “Wake Up the Souls” tour, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Their final American date during the trek was September 12th at the Chicago installment of Riot Fest. They most recently toured throughout Europe in 2017.

System of a Down have toured sporadically since their 2010 reunion, which followed a five-year absence after issuing their back-to-back 2005 LPs, Mezmerize and Hypnotize. The band teased a potential sixth album in various interviews over the last few years, though the project has not materialized.

In December, frontman Serj Tankian told Rolling Stone that the band members “discussed” a possible record and “played each other songs,” but noted they “still haven’t come eye to eye on how things should be done for us to be able to move forward with it.” However, he clarified that the band still enjoyed touring together – and that their lack of studio output was not a reflection on their camaraderie.

“That’s the funny thing,” Tankian said. “When people don’t see a record, they assume the worst about your internal relationship. But the truth is we’re actually better friends – at least I’m better friends with everyone than I’ve ever been. John’s my brother-in-law; he’s in my family. We have a great time together touring. But sometimes putting together a record, and that creative output and how things should be done, is different in four people’s heads and it doesn’t always come together. Fortunate or unfortunate, however you want to call it, that’s the truth. But touring is easy, because you’ve done all these songs. You have fun, you go out and tour, and that’s it.”

NEW YORK, April 9, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Since 2013, the world-acclaimed Tiger Beer, has championed emerging talent. The latest campaign takes this idea of ‘uncaging’ local heroes and focuses it on a specific type of creative – those whose bold approach to their craft serves a good cause.&…

Dashboard Confessional released an uplifting black-and-white video for their folky new love song “Heart Beat Here.”

The clip intersperses footage of an affectionate couple cuddling and holding hands with shots of Dashboard Confessional performing in front of a jubilant, iPhone-swaying crowd

Between these heart-warming scenes, the camera cuts to lead singer Chris Carrabba, strumming vigorously and singing earnestly about love’s obstacles: “We found our way past our youthful fears/ And fought our way through the pain and tears … Winter’s come to take me away/ I wear my ring to know what’s at stake.”

“Heart Beat Here” appeared in February on Crooked Shadows, the first Dashboard Confessional LP since 2009. “Every album is personal,” Carrabba said in a statement when he announced the new record. “But as this album was coming together, I realized, especially as the world’s political climate was rapidly changing, that ‘personal’ did not necessarily mean ‘mine’ – suddenly, ‘me’ became ‘we’ and that realization was empowering, comforting and terrifying all at once.”

Crooked Shadows reached Number Four on Billboard’s rock albums chart. Lead single “We Fight” enjoyed modest success at alternative-formatted radio stations, climbing to Number 14.

Tool members Danny Carey (drums), Justin Chancellor (bass) and Adam Jones (guitar) will walk fans through the writing, recording and performing processes during a series music clinics next month.

The trio will six host discussions, wherein they will mingle with fans and display unique memorabilia. The traveling event kicks off May 11th in Saint Paul, Minnesota and concludes the 19th in Cleveland, Ohio. Each ticket holder will receive commemorative merchandise exclusive to clinic attendees.

Tickets go on sale Friday, April 13th at 10 a.m. local time. A limited number of tickets have been allotted for Tool Army members, available Wednesday, April 11th at 1 p.m. ET via the band’s website store.

Meanwhile, after years of speculation, rumors and false starts, the prog-metal quartet officially began recording their upcoming fifth LP – easily the most widely anticipated album in the genre’s history. In a March Facebook post, Tool’s webmaster confirmed that the band had “moved into a major studio” with producer Joe Barresi and were planning to start by recording Carey’s drum tracks.